For day two of our Escalante trip, we decided to leave the high desert behind and head for the Aquarius Plateau. One of the great things about Escalante is the variety . . . you can explore arches, slot canyons and petroglyphs or escape the heat and head up into the high country. Since we wanted to view the fall leaves and try fishing a few small lakes, we headed north, spending the majority of the day above 10,000 feet elevation.
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As we left Escalante, we were treated to spectacular scenery as we followed Pine Creek northward
(This picture was taken near the Little Death Hollow trailhead . . . Kent has since added it to our to-do list!) |
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| Ah . . . this is what we have come for . . . it looks like we picked the perfect weekend to view leaves |
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| Some of the aspens even had a hint of red in them |
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Before heading to the lakes, Kent located a benchmark he thought we should grab . . .
We parked the truck and took off on a 2.5-mile (r/t) hike to Pelham Knoll . . .
Along the way, we had a good laugh at the aspens, to the right of Kent's hat . . .
They were doing their best impression of a set of In-N-Out Burger palm trees!
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| You've got to love walking in the forest with aspen leaves adorning the road! |
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The forest gave way to high country sage flats, where we spooked a herd of antelope . . .
Pelham Benchmark is located on top of that aspen covered knoll |
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| We're almost to the top . . . the benchmark should be straight ahead |
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| We nearly walked right past it, thinking this was someone's old fire ring |
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| Time to stop and get a picture of photographer and her journalist |
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Kent's already on his way back . . .
Allison couldn't believe this aspen was still alive . . . we could have pushed it over |
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| On our way to Row Lakes, we unexpectedly came upon this "infamous" WWII vehicle known as a half-track |
Half-tracks were half truck, half tanks and were purchased as surplus after the war for logging operations in the 1950's. This particular half-track broke down here in 1954. In 2024, it was "stolen" by a man from Colorado City, AZ. It was relocated, recovered and returned to the Forest Service land in 2025. If you're interested, you can click
here for a KSL featured article that details this half-track's story.
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Just past the half-track we came upon what we thought was the first Row Lake . . .
Later, on our way out, we realized we had driven by the first lake nestled in some thick pines |
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| Leaves past their prime . . . winter can't be too far behind |
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| Kent could see the fish jumping and it didn't take long before he had one on the line |
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A nice rainbow trout that put up a good fight . . .
His sentence was commuted and he lives for another day! |
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After fishing for a half-hour we decided to head for Blue Lake . . .
Kent had a "bad" feeling about the road, so we parked our truck and walked a mile to the lake . . .
Hard to believe anyone would take their vehicle up this "road!"
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| Blue Lake (10,565 ft) |
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Our friend, John, had told us he caught a nice grayling from this lake . . .
Kent couldn't even entice a bite |
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On our way back out to the main road, Allison noticed a glimmer of water through the trees . . .
We found a good pullout and walked 50 yards through the forest and came upon what was actually
the first Row Lake that we had driven past on our way to the half-track . . .
We'll be back to fish this one . . . the trout were rising and jumping out of the lake |
What a wonderful way to spend a beautiful fall morning and afternoon. If you'd like more information on where we were exactly, you're more than welcome to drop us a line by clicking this link to our "
Contact Us" tab in the main menu. Altogether, we hiked about 4.5-miles for the day, with a little over 400 ft of total ascent. That may not sound like much, but 7-weeks after Allison had open-heart surgery, we'll take it!
